The Harmful Effects of Fracking on the Environment
Fracking is a process of underground well stimulation that gas and oil companies. Гse to draw fossil energy deposits from rock formations below the earth. Developed in the late 1940s, this method of injecting large amounts of water. Іand and chemicals to fracture shale rocks for their natural gas has grown in popularity over the years and has gathered as much controversy. Critics and activists against the drilling technique. Сalled fractivists, are primarily concerned with its environmental impact. Цhich is somewhat difficult to moderate as the authority to regulate fracking was stripped from the Environmental Protection Agency by provisions in a bill named Energy Policy Act of 2005. The specific wording that exempts fracking regulation is known today as the Halliburton loophole.
Fractivists have long suspected that the chemicals involved. In fracking have the potential to contaminate drinking water. Which would pose a danger to the health of those living near or in the area of a drilling operation involving fracking. According to a recent peer-reviewed study by Dominic DiGiulio published in Environmental Science and Technology water wells in Pavillion, Wyoming and the nearby Wind River Basin were in fact affected from what co-author Rob Jackson describes as "...a legacy of unlined waste pits with recent instances of poor well integrity, insufficient cement, and surface casings that weren't deep to isolate the oil and gas wells from ground water".
Other issues arising from the process of fracking, are its water use and pollution. A September 2015 study by Duke University found that the process equates to less than 1% of total industrial water use nationwide. And is actually less water-intensive when compared to alternative energy extraction methods. However, the study still emphasizes risks for local water supplies, particularly in areas where there is a water shortage. Claiming drilling one well for fracking requires 3 to 6 million gallons of water. A separate March 2015 study conducted by the scientists of Oregon State University. And the University of Cincinnati used air samplers on the homes of 23 volunteers living near or at a fracking operation and found that even when accounting for other causes such as vehicle exhausts and wood burning, fracking was the main source of pollutants known as PAHs and includes some linked to higher risks of cancer being emitted.
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However, the innovations of fracking reap its benefits. Catherine Hausman and Ryan Kellogg elaborate in what's been described as the first-ever evaluation on the economic benefits of "the U.S. fracking revolution", According to their paper, published by Brookings Institution, fracking has dropped the price of natural gas by 47% compared to what it was expected to be in 2013, prior to the revolution. An additional result of increased fracking showed that consumer gas bills dropped by $13 billion per year between 2007 and 2013.
According to Yale Climate Connections, coal supplied 50% of electricity in 2008. Fracking helped displace coal burning and reduced the amount of harmful particles being emitted into the air as a result of coal burning, such as nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide. Those two elements have been reduced as a dependence on natural gas rose over the coal dependency. Methane, a byproduct of fracking, was shown to be less harmful than carbon dioxide over a 100- year period than the byproducts of coal burning, though still a potential risk when viewed in a 20-year period.
The fast rise to popularity in fracking brings to mind the California Gold Rush. Perhaps the allure of profit drives the hysteria. As someone not as passionate as some people involved with it, I'm inclined to doubt how far the benefits outweigh the risks. Water will be depleted, which poses a threat if fracking were to catch on in a state enduring a drought like California.
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The Harmful Effects of Fracking on the Environment. (2023, May 24). Retrieved from https://phdessay.com/the-harmful-effects-of-fracking-on-the-environment/
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